Teach Me To Number My Days
by Myra109
Summary: When Leo is injured after a run in with a figure from his past, the Hunters find him and have to go on a quest to find the only thing that can save Leo. Along the way, they learn a little more about this annoying, flirtatious boy they have reluctantly agreed to help and find their opinions of him rapidly changing. AU, Collaboration with RueFlower277 (read her works!)
1. Chapter 1

**I do not own PJO or HOO **

**Myra109 here! I collaborated on this story with RueFlower277; go read her works! Also, we have posted this story on BOTH of our accounts.**

* * *

Earlier During The Day

* * *

"Come on, Chiron!" Leo protested. "I don't need to see a stinking councilor!"

"Leo," Will interjected, firmly. "If what happened was really bad enough that it turned the stomach of a who-knows-how-many-millennia-old goddess, then you DO need to see a counselor."

His tone made it clear the discussion was over, and Leo reluctantly complied.

"Don't expect me to like it!" He yelled as he climbed on Festus.

* * *

Now

* * *

"Stupid Will... making me see a counselor" I muttered while driving Festus. I had rebuilt him, but I kept a compacted Buford in my pocket in case of crashes. Yeah, I know I fixed him, but on rare occasions, he went on the fritz, mostly just dripping oil out of his ear. I hoped that he wouldn't malfunction and crash and burn, but when did my life ever go to plan?

Festus started making strange whirring and clicking noises in morse code, which worried me.

"Help-p. maln- " Before he could say anything more, his ruby eyes dimmed and his wings stopped flying.

I dropped down like in a cartoon

"Festus! " I yelled while we were dropping. "What is happening?!"

Festus didn't respond, continuing to fall through the air like a stone, Leo lifting off of his back from the speed of their descent. Leo flailed, trying to locate the device in his pocket to fix Festus, but he knew how difficult it would be to repair Festus in midair. The best he could do was find a way to land safely and do any repairs once they were _on_ the ground and not over a hundred feet _above_ it.

Leo swam through the air in a weird motion that would have looked ridiculous, had he not been falling to his death, and pried open the compartment on Festus's neck, sliding his feet into the kinks in Festus's metal hide to keep himself on the bronze dragon. He located the two wires he needed and touched them to each other.

Nothing happened.

He cursed. "Come on! Come on!" He pleaded, scratching the frayed ends of the wires against each other with hope and desperation burning in his heart.

And finally… a spark.

Leo jumped as a crackle sounded, the wires sparking and connecting, activating Autopilot. It wasn't much; in fact, it barely lasted a minute, but it was just enough time for them to slow their descent.

Unfortunately, it was _not_ enough time for Leo to steer Festus to a safer landing spot. They landed in the middle of a forest, much more softly than they would have without that last moment fail-safe, but they still plowed into the Earth with enough force to rattle Leo's brain inside his skull.

Before Festus had even come to a full stop, Leo was jerked forward by the rough landing, and his head cracked against the solid metal of Festus's neck.

He was out like a light.

* * *

Leo came around to a brisk breeze biting into his cheeks, stinging pain in his forehead that radiated through his entire skull, and the warm glow of early morning, the light of the dawn beginning to paint the sky blue.

Had he really been unconscious all night? He wondered, trying to lift his hand to feel the wound on his head, wanting to gauge how bad the injury was.

That was when he noticed three things: one, Festus was nowhere in sight; two, he probably had a concussion; and three, he was tied to a tree.

He was a little surprised by how long it took him to notice that last thing.

Leo went from disoriented to wide awake in a split second as his wide eyes glanced down at the weird cable-like ropes pinning his arms to his side and trapping him against a tree. He struggled against them, trying to see how durable they were, and his worst fears were confirmed: the ropes held firm.

He panicked for about thirty seconds before he remembered- in a stupidly belated fashion- that he could conjure fire and simply burn through the ropes.

Leo concentrated, but it barely took any focus to light his arms on fire, and he grinned in triumphant, fully expecting the ropes to burn away…

But they didn't.

His smile dropped, and the flames died, and with the extinguishing of the fire, he could see that his eyes were not deceiving him: the fire hadn't done any damage at all. Not even a tiny scorch mark.

"Fireproof cables," a voice supplied from straight ahead of Leo, reading the confusion and surprise on his face.

Leo whirled his head around to face the person, and for a moment, he was sure that his heart had stopped as he stared at the boy-no, man- in front of him.

The young man was in his early twenties, but he was even shorter than Leo at around 5'5 with Leo at 5'6, and he had dark hair and blue eyes that looked like they had seen Hell. His face was expressionless, frighteningly blank, and he wore a camouflage T-shirt and a black jacket. His jeans were ripped in the knees, and his sneakers were spotted with mud and something red that Leo would rather not think about. He had a tattoo on his upper arm, hidden by the jacket, but the dark tendrils of the ink crept up onto the left side of his neck.

He looked so normal, so ordinary, that it was horrifying because Leo knew exactly what this man was capable of.

"John," he acknowledged, willing his voice not to shake.

John smirked, and it was the closest he ever got to a smile. If Leo wasn't tied to a tree, you would have thought they were two friends greeting each other after a long time apart.

But Leo and John were _far_ from friends.


	2. Chapter 2

**This story is a collaboration project: RueFlower277 and Myra109 have worked together on this chapter. Please read the other works of both Rue and Myra! Thank you!**

**Disclaimer: We do not own PJO or HOO or anything that you recognize. The only thing we own are the OCs.**

* * *

"Hello, Leo," John said, casually, as if the person he was talking to wasn't tied to a tree. "How are you?"

"I'm just peachy" I replied, sarcastically. "Just a little tied up. Care to explain why?" I snapped, twitching my fingers, itching to leap up and show him what fire can do, but the fireproof ropes kept me bound and virtually powerless.

"Look," John said, his face expressionless. "Blake put a bounty on your head, and I need the money, so zip it,"

I gasped dramatically and put my hand over my heart or attempted to before remembering _oh yeah,_ I was tied up with fireproof ropes. Stuff like that kinda puts things into perspective. I said, "You think the sizzling hot commander tool belt can just ZIP IT? Do you know how amazing I am? I can use my amazingness to hypnotize you into submission!"

I had no what was coming out of my mouth like farts on Thanksgiving, but while I was talking, I was trying to figure a way out. First, I looked down to see if I had my tool belt only to realize that it was gone, _Thanks SO much, John (note the sarcasm)._ But John's confiscation of his tool belt was a good move strategically wise. If I had my tool belt, I could just grab a dagger or even a screwdriver and cut the rope. I shook my head. What was I thinking, inwardly complimenting the enemy! Even though he couldn't hear my compliment because it was inside my head!

Dang it, I was off track, stupid ADHD.

Anyway, my best bet was to wait until I was untied, then knock him out.

And if that didn't work I could use plan B... Which I was still thinking when John came up to me, and he forcefully placed a blindfold over my eyes, which only increased my anxiety. I lost all of my bearings and had no idea where the heck we were going. Damn him to Tarturas!

Actually no, I wouldn't do that do a person, even if said person was as annoying as Apollo's haikus.

No one deserves that horrible place. Percy and Annabeth, the strongest demigods I knew, came back, but they were broken, shattered. They had been doing better in the past few months, but we could all see the impression that awful place left on them.

No, John didn't deserve it because he was only trying to feed himself and, on the streets, it was every man for himself

I felt him move the ropes and remembered about my compacted Buford. He can get help!

I knew where he was and when my slightly untied fingers closed around him, I felt the ropes loosen and I fell on my face.

On purpose, of course, but damn, It hurt like Hades!

I grabbed him and with my index finger, I tapped:

"Protocol 5"

Protocol 5 was basically that the compacted Buford would get wheels and roll until he was 20 m away before becoming his usual size then find the nearest demigod that was NOT me or anyone in a 15 m radius of me to help. I was far away but I hoped that he would bring someone who would help.

I then tapped Morse code for "wait."

Now he would stay the small size until I tapped "go."

I pulled my hand out of my pocket before John got suspicious, and thanked every god out there.

He didn't notice... Or I am pretty sure he didn't, anyway, because he didn't comment and he was like a total " Mwahaha I have foiled your plan" dude. but he might have noticed. I was blindfolded, after all.

"I'm going to bring you to Blake," He said while tying the rope around my wrists to be so tight I stopped having feeling in my fingers.

"He wants to, in his words," He leaned so close to me, I could practically smell the cigarettes on his breath. "Give you a taste of why people don't get on his bad side."

Oh, Fuck. I was _in trouble._

He picked me up, commenting on how light I was, even though I was an inch taller than him and tossed me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

I was about to grab compacted Buford and type Go, but I was stopped by a hissing sound coming from my right. For a moment, I thought I had hit my head too hard, and the hissing was just my imagination, but I felt John come to an abrupt halt and knew that I wasn't imagining it.

I wasn't sure whether to be grateful or not.

"What the heck is that?" John wondered.

I could hear something else besides the hissing, but it was an odd sound. Like a clack-clomp, as if something metal hit the ground followed by something, not metal…

Oh, no. I had fought enough monsters to know what that meant.

"What the-"

I was painfully dropped to the ground, my tied hands uncomfortably bent behind my back.

I struggled to escape my bonds and mentally cursed when they didn't even loosen by a margin. Dang, somebody got their knot-tying badge in boy scouts, I thought, sarcastically.

I could hear the noise coming closer, and John was screaming like a toddler. I couldn't blame him, though; demigods are pretty accustomed to seeing monsters, but John s as not. Whatever John saw through the mist, I'm sure it was terrifying; sometimes the mist can concoct images even scarier than reality, I had found.

I heard a thump, followed by running footsteps and knew that John had fled the scene and would be no help. Not that I expected him to help me, anyway.

I couldn't get myself free, but I could send compacted Buford to get help. I managed to reach my pocket and typed in the command Go, feeling Buford escape my pocket and unfold himself, remaining pretty small but no longer the size of a compact mirror, and raced away, his wooden legs unevenly clacking against the Earth as he sprinted deeper into the woods towards the nearest sign of demigod life.

"Hello, little demigod," the empousa (empousai, I realized, counting at least three sets of uneven footsteps as they approached my helpless form) mocked, her voice sweet like honey. "Let's have some fun…"

* * *

Thalia did not expect to find a walking table in her tent when she woke up that morning.

She awakened around nine o'clock, as usual, but at the first sign of movement (awkward movement, casting shadows that were definitely not human-shaped on the silver walls of her tent), she snatched her bow from its place beside her sleeping bag and notched an arrow, aiming it at… a table? Okay, she had to admit that was a new one.

The table was opening and closing its drawers like it was trying to say something urgently.

It was trying to tell her something, but what? Unfortunately, Thalia didn't speak Table, so she stared at the table in confusion, trying to figure out what it was trying to tell her.

She decided to ask Lady Artemis what in the world a table was doing in her tent.

It was early, but Thalia knew that Lady Artemis would be in her tent.

She went to grab the table only for it to scooch away from her grasp.

Damn it! Maybe if she asked nicely..."Hey." She noticed someone had carved the name Buford on his wooden planks and decided that is what she was going to call the table.

"Buford, can you come with me?" She awkwardly asked the table.

The table now named "Buford" opened its drawers like it was saying _really?_

"You'll be fine," she reassured Buford.

Oh, God, she was talking to a table. Well, this IS a moving table that I am pretty sure can understand me, she thought.

The top part of the table moved up and down like it was nodding and Thalia took it as an OK.

So, she walked out of her tent and to Lady Artemis's, hoping she was there.

"Umm... Lady Artemis " She said. "I have something you need to see."

Artemis popped her head out of her tent wondering what Her Lieutenant thought was something she needed to see.

What she saw was not what she had been expecting.

There was her Lieutenant with a...table?

The second the table saw her it started huffing and puffing, Its drawers opening and closing like crazy.

She looked at Thalia for an explanation but she just shrugged and said, "It appeared in my tent." Before she could say anything else, the table started to use its legs to write a message in the dirt. Once it was done, it ran off.

Lady Artemis took a second to look at the letters and then rocketed after It because the words scratched hastily into the dirt said: "FOLLOW ME."

"Phoebe, you're in charge until we get back!" Thalia called over her shoulder as she chased after Artemis.

Phoebe stared after them in bewilderment, obviously taken aback by the sight of the goddess and her lieutenant racing after a table that was moving on its own, but by the time she got over her initial shock enough to ask what the heck was going on, Artemis and Thalia had bolted out of the clearing and disappeared into the woods surrounding their camp.

She shrugged and went to rouse the rest of the Hunters. She was sure Artemis and Thalia would explain when they got back.

The table lumbered ahead of them, awkwardly but hastily moving from side to side with each step. Artemis was right on its tail, moving fluidly in a way only an experienced Huntress could, jumping from tree to tree and keeping her footsteps light as she followed the table. Thalia followed the goddess, her movements not quite as practiced but still very agile.

The table stuttered to a halt, and Artemis and Thalia quickly caught up, only to have a major shock when they reached the table.

A bronze dragon, sitting motionless in a plowed up section of the Earth, its ruby eyes dim but still glowing ever so slightly.

Thalia raced over to it. "This is Festus, the bronze dragon from camp! But what's he doing here?"

The dragon slurred out a few clicks, and Artemis tilted her head.

"Morse code," she murmured. Artemis (and all of the gods and goddesses) knew a variety of languages, and Morse Code was something Artemis had learned several centuries ago. Her and her Hunters used it quite often when they needed to be quiet while hunting.

Thalia listened carefully to the clicks as Festus repeated them.

"L… E… O," she spelled out. "Leo," she realized.

Thalia turned to Buford the table. The craftsmanship and function of this table was clearly the work of a child of Hephaestus, and Leo did have a weird habit of making even the oddest automations his best friends.

Thalia straightened, absently patting Festus's head. Whether it was to comfort the dragon or reassure herself, she didn't know.

"Where's Leo?" she questioned, and Buford motioned with his tabletop towards the woods to the right of the dragon. They followed the table deeper into the woods, and it wasn't long before they found what Buford had been trying to lead them to.

The goddess and her lieutenant gasped in horror when their eyes landed on the gruesome sight before them.


	3. Chapter 3

The demigod was coated in his own blood.

Artemis and Thalia knew they had to do SOMETHING, anything, or he would bleed out on the forest floor

"Milady," Thalia said, panicked " What do we do?"

"We shall bring him to the camp to heal," Artemis said while bending down to examine his injuries

Once she was done, she looked troubled.

"His injuries are past my capacities to heal," she said.

"We need to bring in Apollo," finished Thalia.

"Yes," Artemis said, agreeing with her lieutenant.

Artemis bent down and pick up the scrawny Latino (bridal style), frowning when she realized she could feel his ribs through his blood-soaked shirt

"Thalia," She said.

"Yes, Milady?" she responded.

"Go to where we have set up camp; tell the other hunters that we are to help this injured demigod."

"Of course, Milady," she said. Thalia then ran off to tell the other hunters of what had happened.

"Thalia!" Artemis called, and her lieutenant stopped.

"Iris Message your brother, " Artemis said. "Their camp must be in total disarray"

Thalia's mouth made an O shape before she ran off, tossing a "Thanks Milady!" over her shoulder as she went.

Artemis smiled and shook her head,but it quickly turned into a frown when Leo started muttering in Spanish.

"Mami? eres tú?" (Mom? is it you?)

Now Artemis knew Spanish. One of her hunters could only speak Spanish, but she continued walking hoping to not jostle him, and reopen a clotted wound.

Then Leo's head jerked to the side like he had been slapped.

"Tia Rosa! lo siento!" (Aunt Rosa! I'm sorry!)

Artemis jumped as he spoke in an almost pleading tone

"No soy un asesino!"(I'm not a murderer!)

Lo siento! Lo siento... (I'm sorry! I'm sorry...)

Artemis sighed, staring down at the boy's bloody face. She was the goddess of child birth and, indirectly or directly, childhood. She always made sure to watch out for the abused children, but no matter how many she helped, no matter how many she outnumber her protection, there were always more.

She didn't understand how anyone could hurt a child. She didn't want to understand. Child abuse, any abuse, was the worst crime anyone could commit, in her opinion, and Hades agreed with her on a certain level. There was a special place in the Fields of Punishment for child abusers.

She only knew a fraction of what Leo Valdez had been through, but if his delirious, terrified ramblings were any indication, there was much more to his story than Teresa.

* * *

Thalia sprinted straight back to camp, expertly weaving her way through the trees thickly sprouting in the dense woods, and she raced into the place where they had set up camp, startling her fellow Hunters.

The rest of the Hunters were sitting around the fire, talking, sharpening their weapons, carving bows, and the like, and they all looked up as the lieutenant of their sisterhood burst into their camp, breathing a little heavily and looking a little panicked, but trying to conceal.

One of the first rules you learn as a demigod is: panicking will not solve anything. Thalia lived by that rule, and she would not freak out when her brother's best friend needed her to keep it together.

"We have an injured demigod," she announced. "Artemis is bringing him back here. Phoebe, Kaleigh, and Allison, set up a tent and gather all of our Healing supplies. The rest of you, start packing up our stuff. Quinn and Margaret, I want you two to IM Apollo while I IM to camp to let them know we have one of their demigod here."

The Hunters obeyed without question or preamble, and Thalia walked a little bit away from the campground until she came upon a crystal blue lake, the early morning sun reflecting off the cerulean surface. She withdrew a drachma from her pocket, as well as a flashlight she carried in her small Hunting bag. She used the flashlight to make a rainbow and tossed the drachma into the rainbow.

"Iris, goddess of the rainbow, show me Jason Grace at Camp Half-Blood."

The words took effect immediately, and within seconds, the image of her brother appeared in the rainbow…

As well as Chiron and the cabin councilors in the meeting room, all seated around the Ping Pong table.

Jason jumped a little at the IM's sudden appearance. "Thalia!" He exclaimed. "Nice to see you. I would love to talk, but-"

"We found Leo," Thalia interrupted, and the councilors straightened, Piper and Nyssa (who must have been appointed temporary councilor for Cabin 9 in Leo's absence) standing up to come into full view of the Iris Message.

"Really? Where is he? He should have been back an hour ago. We tried Iris Messaging him, but without an exact location, they never went through," Nyssa informed her.

"We found him in the woods just outside of New York," Thalia answered. "He's injured. He was unconscious when we found him, and Festus was all out of sorts, so we don't exactly know what happened. Artemis couldn't heal him, so we're contacting Apollo."

Jason nodded, and he grabbed a pen and paper from the center of the table.

"Give me your coordinates. The seven and I will be there soon," Jason said, and Thalia nodded, telling him her coordinates as Jason scrawled them down onto the notepad.

"We'll take the camp can and be there in an hour," Jason told her, and Thalia nodded.

"Okay. We'll take care of Leo until Apollo gets here," Thalia promised before swiping her hand through the Iris Message, allowing the image of her brother to evaporate into thin air.

By the time Thalia had returned to camp, Artemis had made it back with Leo in her arms. The goddess handed the injured demigod over to Kaleigh, and the blonde huntress, along with Phoebe and Allison, disappeared into the tent they had set up as a makeshift Infirmary.

Thalia approached Quinn and Margaret, who were looking on the ground and shuffling their feet. They didn't look like they were carrying promising news.

"Did you get ahold of Apollo?" Thalia inquired as Artemis joined her.

Quinn shook her head. "No, we got Lord Zeus. He said Apollo wasn't available and hung up the Iris Message," Quinn told them, tilting her head in confusion at the curious behavior of the god of the skies.

Artemis frowned, as well, perplexed by the strange event, as well.

"I will speak with my father," she informed her Huntresses. "Thalia, is anyone from camp coming?"

Thalia nodded. "Yes. The rest of the seven should be here in about an hour."

Artemis nodded, as well. "Good. Quinn, Margaret, help the others pack up. Thalia, check on Leo while I Iris Message my father."

"Yes, My Lady," the three Huntresses choruses before breaking off from their little group to obey the orders given to them by their goddess.

Frowning in curiosity and maybe a little concern for her brother (he annoyed the heck out of her, but he was still her twin brother. He was still her family), she grabbed a drachma from her hunting bag and located a nearby lake.

"Iris, goddess of the rainbow, show me Zeus on Olympus," Artemis requested (although request might be a strong word. As if a minor goddess would refuse to answer the call of an Olympian), tossing the drachma into the rainbow she had made, watching as the drachma disappeared into the mist.

Her father's scowling face appeared on the screen.

He frowned, his scowl lessening by only a margin at the sight of his daughter.

"Artemis?" He sounded surprised, but she couldn't blame him. She very rarely interacted with him or any of the Olympians outside of the Winter Solstice, choosing instead to spend the time with her Hunters.

"Hello, Father. Have you seen Apollo?" she asked, and Zeus's scowl deepened.

"He is serving his punishment for not keeping that descendant of his on a tighter leash," Zeus spat. "I sent him away, a place where he will be unable to use his powers."

Artemis raised both of her eyebrows in shock. "Father, you know that what that legacy did was not Apollo's fault. And to strip him of his powers because of it?"

Zeus seemed unbothered by her words. "That boy was Apollo's descendant. At the very least, Apollo should have been keeping a better eye on him and disposed of him before he got too out of hand. Your brother failed in that regard, and that legacy almost caused the end of the world. I think removing Apollo's powers temporarily was actually quite lenient of me."

Artemis shook her head, deciding she didn't have time to deal with her father's stubbornness.

"The point is… we need him to heal a demigod. The demigod is injured beyond my capabilities, and the only one who might be able to heal him is Apollo."

Zeus raised an eyebrow. "All of this trouble for one demigod?"

"Yes. That one demigod being Leo Valdez, the one who defeated Gaea and saved all of us. So give Apollo hos powers back, at least until he heals Leo Valdez," Artemis told her father, a dangerous edge entering her voice. It wasn't quite an order, but it was a close thing.

Zeus shook his head. "I cannot-"

Artemis sighed in frustration. "Father-"

"Artemis, I literally cannot," Zeus told her. "I sent Apollo away to a place where he won't be able to use his powers or reach out to other immortals for help. I sent him to a place beyond the gods."

Artemis reeled back in shock. "You sent him to Alaska? Father, do you know how many monsters and immortals would go after a god who is unable to defend himself? And you sent him to a place where you can't even watch over him to make sure that doesn't happen?"

"Apollo needed to learn his lesson. Now, considering Leo Valdez's…" Zeus swallowed, looking like it was physical painful to compliment a demigod, "Heroic acts to save Olympus and all of humanity, you can go to Alaska and seek Apollo out. Bring Apollo to Olympus, and I will restore his powers."

Artemis sighed, wanting to argue but knowing her bull-headed father would never change his mind. That was as close as they would get, and if they needed to get to Alaska to find Apollo, she couldn't waste any time arguing with her thick-skulled father when she knew he wouldn't change his mind.

"Thank you, Father," Artemis choked out, trying not to act like she was thinking of some very creative insults in her mind. "You have been a great help."

She swiped through the Iris Message and blew a lock of air of her face.

"More like no help at all," she muttered before beginning to head back to the campground.

Artemis went straight for the Infirmary Tent when she returned to the camp, and she felt her heart jump into her throat when she saw Leo Valdez lying on a cot, pale as Death with Allison gently washing the dried blood off of his skin. Thalia, Phoebe, and Kaleigh stood off to the side of the tent.

"How bad is it?" Artemis asked Allison, their best Healer.

Allison sighed. "Empousa attack," she informed the goddess. "He lost a lot of blood. We were able to stop the bleeding, but the venom had already made its way into his bloodstream. We gave him some Nectar and Ambrosia to slow the spread of the venom, but the only one who can remove such a large amount of venom like this is… Apollo."

"How long does he have?" Artemis questioned.

"If we keep him on a steady amount of Nectar and Ambrosia, we may be able to drag it out to three weeks at the most, but it won't be painless by any means. The venom first causes a high fever, hallucinations, and blisters," Allison informed her, pulling down the collar of Leo's short to display a pattern of small, pinkish dots on Leo's collarbone. "They will only get worse as the venom spreads. The venom will then cause paralysis, which can be reversed if we heal him early but could be permanent if the venom is left untreated for much longer. He'll have breathing difficulties, an irregular heartbeat, low blood pressure, bleeding from the eyes, mouth, nose, and ears, vision loss, and more until his organs begin to shut down. His brain functions will slow; he may have a hard time speaking and understanding and remembering certain things. The venom may cause seizures and catatonic towards… towards the end," Allison finished as she washed off the rest of the blood caked on Leo's neck.

Artemis took a rattling breath. "Okay," she managed, trying to pretend she didn't feel nauseas from the mere description of it. "Allison, is Leo stable enough to be left alone long enough for a Huntress meeting?"

Allison nodded. "Yes, Lady Artemis."

Artemis nodded in return. "Okay. Thalia, call all of the Hunters together. It's time for a meeting."

* * *

"I'm sure all of you have heard by now that we have an injured demigod here. Leo Valdez," Artemis announced to the Hunters gathered around her. "He was attacked by an empousa, and the venom has entered his bloodstream. The only one who can heal him is Apollo, but I contacted my father, and Apollo has been sent away to serve his punishment for the actions of his descendant Octavian during the Giant War.

"According to my father, Apollo has been stripped of his powers, but if we get Apollo to Olympus, Zeus will restore his powers, so that Apollo can heal Leo Valdez.

"However, Apollo has been sent away to Alaska, the land beyond the gods. If we want to have any hope of saving Leo Valdez's life, we need to travel to Alaska, find Apollo, and get him to Olympus, and we need to do it all in three weeks. Leo Valdez will not live beyond three weeks, so we do not have any time to waste.

"I'm not going to lie to you. This quest will not be easy. The land beyond the gods is a place where monsters roam, a place where I cannot go. I can travel with you to the border, but the minute you step into Alaska, you are on your own. This quest will be dangerous. If any of you do not want to come, we will not fault you for staying here at camp."

Willow, one of the Hunters, chuckled. "Are you kidding, Lady Artemis? We're demigods! Dangerous quests are an occupational hazard."

Artemis smiled, watching as all of her Hunters stood up, agreeing to the quest without a moment's hesitation. She had never felt more proud of her brave Huntresses than in that moment, the way they all jumped up to save a demigod most of them barely knew.

"All right, then. The seven will be here in less than an hour. Once they arrive, we set off for Alaska," Artemis declared.

* * *

_Note: I do not know if empousai are venomous, but in this story, they are, for the sake of the plot._


	4. Chapter 4

_This chapter was a collaboration between RueFlower2__77 and Myra109. People read the works of both Rue and Myra! Thanks!_

**Disclaimer: Myra109 and RueFlower277 do not own Percy Jackson, Heroes Of Olympus, or anything that recognize. The characters belong to the amazing Rick Riordan****.**

* * *

The seven, Nico, Will, and Rachel walked into the Hunters' camp. Everyone, even Percy, was anxious to hear what Thalia would say when she walked up to them and went to open her mouth.

Rachel's eyes started glowing, and green smoke poured out of her mouth.

All the Hunters in the vicinity clamped their hands over their ears as Rachel started to spout out a prophecy

_To save the flame, __you must go to where the healer god roams_

_Follow the path the fire user once walked alone_

_The Hunters lead the way to the lion's den_

_While a lock of hair helps dove and lightning __to make the trio whole again_

_Skull and sun must find a picture in the ashes_

_The sea must swim past the deep end before the storm passes_

_Wisdom follows an article to a friendship long since broken_

_War and Jewels go to the Golden State to search for a token_

_Find five items from his past to complete the cure _

_or else fire's fate will be all too sure_

_Lightning must remember lost memories_

_for if he doesn't, the __fire's life is in jeopardy_

The smoke receded and Rachel blinked and put her head in her hands.

"Ughhh..." she groaned.

Then she noticed everyone staring at her.

"What?" she said, taking her head out of her hands and glaring.

"Uh, Rachel?" Percy said. "You kinda gave a prophecy"

At the same time, Rachel groaned and said, "It happened again, didn't it?"

"Yeah, it did," Jason said.

* * *

"So… the prophecy?"

The Hunters and the nine demigods and one Oracle sat in a circle in the center of the camp. Phoebe was in the Healer tent watching over Leo.

Annabeth stood, pacing back and forth as the wheels in her mind turned.

"Well, let's think about this logically," she decided. "The first line is pretty obvious: We must go to Alaska and find Apollo to save Leo's life.

"The second line… the path the fire user once walked alone? Maybe it references Leo's past?" Annabeth theorized.

"But Leo never really told us about his past," Percy pointed out. "Except for the whole… Teresa thing."

All of them fell silent at the mention of that awful woman.

Annabeth suddenly perked up, pointing at Percy in a eureka motion, causing Percy to jump back a little.

"That's it!" she exclaimed. "The third line! The Hunters watched over Leo when he was at Teresa's. The lion could be a reference to Teresa. She was certainly vicious enough. That's where one of the objects is!"

Artemis nodded. "I'm thinking you're right, Annabeth. My Hunters and I will leave for Teresa Wilkes's house in an hour," she announced. "What about the rest of you?" she asked, gesturing to the seven, Will, Nico, and Rachel.

Annabeth thought about this for a moment. "We need to go back to camp. You can tell a lot about a person from their house," she pointed out.

Percy frowned. "Leo doesn't have a house."

Annabeth frowned, and Nico thumped Percy on the arm.

"She doesn't mean it literally, Kelp Head," Nico said. "She means his cabin. The Hephaestus campers have private rooms. Leo probably wouldn't like us going through his stuff, but given the circumstances, I don't think he'll mind."

Hazel suddenly straightened. "What about Leo? It's not safe for us to drag him all over the country, but if we make the cure, we'll need to give it to him as quick as possible."

"He will come with us," Artemis declared. "We are all well versed in first aid, and we have a few with Healing Magic and medical knowledge."

Jason nodded. "Okay. We should all meet in California. Hazel and Frank have to go there anyway to find some kind of token, and it's close enough to Alaska for it to be a good meeting place."

"It's settled then," Artemis said, turning to one of her Hunters. "Willow, go fetch Phoebe. Tell her we leave in an hour."

* * *

Phoebe did not want anything to do with boys. Not since her boyfriend abuses her several decades ago (remember: she's immortal), and she especially hated flirts. Her boyfriend used to flirt with every pair of legs in a skirt, sometimes right in front of her, and she loved him so much that she let it happen. She never stood up for herself.

Until she found the Hunters. Then, she kicked her boyfriend's ass. And of course, her newfound sisters had helped.

But even after all these years, she still felt a little nauseas every time she met a flirtatious boy.

And as luck would have, Leo Valdez was as flirtatious as they came, and as one of the highest ranking Hunters (after Artemis and Thalia, obviously), she was stuck on first watch.

She stared at the boy's face, which was so pale, he looked like he had been drained of all his blood (which had been pretty close to what happened, actually), and she almost felt a little sorry for him.

But all she could think about was the way he objectified women, the way he flirted with them, even when they made it clear that they were not interested. He didn't seem to take no for an answer.

_"You are my girlfriend! I dictate who you talk to!"_

_"He's my friend!"_

_"I don't care! He probably just wants to get in your pants!"_

_"That is not true! He's like my brother, and I will not stop talking to him just because you-"_

SLAP!

Phoebe shook herself out of the memories before she could fall deeper into her past. She had left that life behind her. She was not the same weak, insecure girl she used to be. She could handle herself. She had a wonderful family, and she did not answer to any boy. She was proud. She was confident. She was strong. She was Phoebe Valentine. She was a Huntress.

"No… No, I'm sorry!"

Phoebe blinked, coming out of her thoughts, and her eyes landed on the boy lying on the cot. His eyes were open, but they were glazed with fever. She begrudgingly laid a hand on his forehead, feeling the heat emanating from his skin. It was so intense, she had to immediately snatch her hand away, and still, a red mark remained just below her knuckles.

Apparently, fire users have some pretty intense fevers, she thought.

Leo scrunched his eyes closed. "Ace, I'm sorry. I'll do better, I promise."

Phoebe frowned, sitting a little closer to the cot. The boy was flailing so much, she feared he would fall off of the cot and hurt himself further.

"I-I won't! I'll do better! Please don't hurt-"

Phoebe jolted back a little as Leo suddenly cried out, whipping his head to the side as though he had been struck.

"Ace, please stop! I love you! Don't…" Leo dissolved into sobs.

Phoebe found herself shoved into the past again at his words.

_"Ty, I love you! Please don't hurt me!"_

But he always did. He always hurt her. She loved him so much, but he never loved her.

And it looks like Leo knew exactly how that felt. How it felt to love someone who never loved you. How it felt to fool yourself into believing they loved you, even it only made it hurt more in the end.

Phoebe stared at the flirtatious boy on the cot, who was still mumbling to himself, but the worst seemed to had passed for the time being as his struggling slowed and his cries quieted.

She was a Huntress. He was a flirt.

But maybe they weren't as different as she originally wanted to believe.

The tent flapped fluttered open, and Willow stepped inside.

"Phoebe, we leave in an hour. I'll watch Leo, and Thalia can catch you up while you pack your things," Willow told her.

Phoebe nodded, forcing herself to look away from Leo, struggling to regain her composure.

"Okay. Yeah. Thanks, Willow."

* * *

"So..." Percy said

Then Annabeth interrupted him by saying

"We need to tell this...prophecy to Chiron, he will know what are next steps should be"

The rest of the demigods nodded in agreement, and Nico and Will shadow travelled away.

"Seaweed brain" She said turning to Percy "Call the pegasi. Gods know what Nico and Will would do if most of the councillors aren't there."

* * *

_A little later once they have arrived at Camp Half Blood_

Jason looked around at everyone once they had arrived.

"Ok, everyone here?" He said.

Nodded heads from the assembled Half Bloods.

"Hopefully, Nico and Will have informed Chiron of the...Prophecy."

"The prophecy and most of the context for it," Will said, and Clarisse spoke up:

"So let me get this straight: Leo got poisoned and has roughly three weeks to live unless you gather five items from his past and get the help of two gods."

The cabin councilors, Chiron, and all of Cabin 9 (since Leo was their head councilor and brother) sat in the Big House living room (the usual meeting room was too small to hold all of them).

"Basically," Nico agreed.

"Three gods if you count Artemis," Percy piped up.

"But we know next to nothing about Leo's past!" Nyssa pointed out, concern deeply rooted in her eyes. "How would we even know where to start or where to look or-"

"I might have something that can help," Harley murmured, so quietly that they almost didn't hear him.

Nyssa turned to Harley. "Really? What is it?"

Harley rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Well, about a month ago, I was in Leo's room, working on a project. He had gone to help Jake with something, and I dropped my screwdriver under his bed, but when I went to grab it, I found a box," Harley rambled. "I didn't mean to snoop, but I was just so curious, and I didn't think Leo would mind. I opened it, and… there was all this stuff. Newspaper articles, photos, a map, some bracelets and necklaces, even this strand of hair for some reason…"

Annabeth straightened. "The lock of hair helps dove and lightning to make the trio whole again," she quoted the prophecy. "That must be it! Harley, can you show us the box?"

Harley nodded, and the seven, along with Nyssa, Will, and Nico, followed the youngest Hephaestus child to Cabin 9, where he led them into Leo's private room by jumping on his bed and pressing the button that caused it to descend into the floor.

Leo's room was… cleaner than they expected. They all kind of expected him to be a slob, like most boys (most teenagers, for that matter), but Leo's room was actually very organized and orderly. His bed was made; his desk was clear except for a stack of blue prints and a sketchpad; there were no clothes spilling out of his dresser. The messiest part of the room was his work bench, and even that seemed to have some kind of organized chaos to it.

Harley knelt on the floor and pulled out a box, only slightly bigger than a shoe box and just as tall as one. He placed the box on the bed and took off the lid to reveal the contents of it.

Remembering how Annabeth quoted the prophecy, Jason's eyes were immediately drawn to one object in the box.

Jason frowned as he pulled out a lock of hair from the box. It was a simple blonde braid, a little longer than his middle finger, a little frayed but obviously well taken care of.

"Why would Leo have a lock of hair?" He wondered aloud, and Nico hummed as he took the braid from Jason, cradling it like it was a precious object (well, if it was in this box, it was a precious object to Leo) as he examined it.

"In some cultures," Nico finally spoke up, "They would cut off one of the person's braids when they died."

Piper raised an eyebrow, her eyes filling with melancholy. "So that braid… someone important to Leo died, and…"

"He was given her braid or cut off her braid himself," Nico finished.

Jason stood from where he was crouching down beside the box. "The lock of hair helps dove and lightning to make the trio whole again," he recalled. "Nico, if that person really is… dead, can you find out who she is?"

Nico nodded. "Yes, but she has to be in Elysium or the Fields of Punishment for you to talk to her. If she's in the Fields of Asphodel… well, let's just say she won't be much help."

Nico held the braid in his hands and closed his eyes in concentration, but it was only a moment before he opened them again.

"Julia Bandersnatch. She's a daughter of Ares," he informed them. "She's in Elysium."

He handed the braid back to Jason, and he turned to Will.

"I'll shadow travel them to the Underworld and come straight back here after we talk to Julia. Then, we can take a bus to Texas. I know how you feel about my Underworld powers," Nico chuckled, kissing Will on the lips.

Will just smiled, a little sadly. "I just don't want you disappearing again."

Nico nodded. "I won't. I finally have a reason not to fade away."

The boys smiled at each other before Nico suddenly snapped out of it and turned to Jason and Piper, who were trying not to grin at the sweet moment they had just witnessed between the two demigods.

"Let's get going," Nico said, and he grabbed Jason and Piper's hands before they could comment. Within moments, they disappeared in a whirl of shadows.

Jason and Piper, unused to shadow travel, found themselves screaming as they tumbled into a vortex of shadows. Nico simply fell through the darkness with a blank expression on his face, too used to the sensation to be startled. He glanced at Jason and Piper and snickered as they flailed and yelled.

They landed by the side of the River Styx.

"How on Earth do you do that everyday?" Jason sputtered as he and Piper, both looking a little green, climbed to their feet.

Nico shrugged. "I have an iron stomach. Now, let's head to Elysium."

Jason, Piper, and Nico set off for the golden gates of Elysium. Normally, guards would have stopped them at every turn, but the minute they saw Nico, who was basically Prince of the Underworld, they backed off. Jason, Piper, and Nico entered Eternal Paradise without any hassle.

Given the circumstances, Jason and Piper were still awestruck by the beauty of Elysium.

It was set up eerily like a combination of Camp Half Blood and Camp Jupiter. Streets stretched out as far as the eye could see with buildings on both sides of each road. The buildings were all different. Some simply resembled a fancy house while others had slides rolling out of the windows. One had musical designs painting the walls, and the sound of piano and violin floated down from one of the windows. Another looked like a machine shop. Jason saw a swimming pool in the backyard of one of the houses. And that was just what they could see from this angle! If they went deeper into Elysium, Piper and Jason were sure the awesomeness of Eternal Paradise would only grow.

"Hey, Nico!" a voice exclaimed, and they turned to see a dark skinned, muscular man walking towards them, hand in hand with a girl with hair as black as night. They were both beaming, happily.

"Hey, Beckendorf," Nico greeted with a smile of his own. "I wish we could chat, but we're here on a quest. Have you heard of someone named Julia Bandersnatch?"

The man, who Jason and Piper realized was Charles Beckendorf, son of Hephaestus and hero of Olympus scratched his chin in thought. "Yes," he finally told them. "She's probably at the sword fighting arena. She spends most of her time there."

"Thanks, Beckendorf. See you later, Silena," Nico said with a wave to the black haired girl, and both demigods waved back as the three living teens walked deeper into Elysium.

Nico led them into a building at the end of the street. It was tall without any windows and with what looked like reinforced walls. When Jason walked in, he could see why.

"Woah!" he shouted as he hurried to duck when a sword came flying over his head. It spiraled over him, only a hair above his skull, and it went straight through a middle aged man on the street behind them. Literally. Through.

"Hey, watch it!" the man shouted as the sword flattered onto the street after phasing through his transparent body.

"Sorry!" a guy called from inside the building, moving around Jason and Piper to retrieve his sword.

Inside the building, people were training with a wide degree of weaponry, sparring one another, practicing sword maneuvers, attacking dummies. The building was huge to fit a large number of people inside, but Jason, Piper, and Nico still had to maneuver around several people to finally reach a girl with long, braided blonde hair, practicing sword moves on a straw dummy.

Jason pulled the hair from his pocket and held it up, looking between the braid and the girl's braided locks. It was a match.

"Julia Bandersnatch?" He called, and the girl turned, allowing them to see her icy blue eyes.

"Yes?" she responded, curiously.

"We're, uh, we're friends of Leo Valdez," Piper informed her, and the girl perked up at the name, immediately walking over to them.

"Is he okay?" she blurted before her eyes landed on the braid in Jason's hand. "No," she answered her own question. "He wouldn't have given that to you if it wasn't dire. What happened?"

One long explanation later…

"So Leo's been poisoned, and the only way to heal him is to find five items from his past. The prophecy said that one of items has something to do with me," Julia summed up.

Nico nodded. "Pretty much. Any idea what the object is?"

Julia nodded. "More than an idea. I know exactly what it is. A dagger that he left behind after I died. It's the only thing connected to me that's significant enough to be one of the objects."

Jason frowned in confusion. "Why is the dagger so significant?"

"Because it's the dagger he used to kill me."


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello, everyone! This story is a collaboration between Myra109 and RueFlower277. Please read the other works of both Rue and Myra.**

**This chapter is a flashback and takes place three years before the rest of the story. Leo is roughly thirteen in this chapter, as is Julia (Original Character).**

**Disclaimer: Myra109 and RueFlower277 do not own Percy Jackson or Heroes Of Olympus or the characters. Anything you recognize belongs to the amazing, talented Rick Riordan. We only own the OCs (there will likely be some kind of guide at the end of the story with all of our Original Characters)**

_**WARNINGS:**__**OC CHARACTER DEATHS, VIOLENCE (ALTHOUGH IT'S MORE IMPLIED/MENTIONED VIOLENCE THAN ACTUAL VIOLENT SCENES... YOU'LL SEE WHAT I MEAN WHEN YOU READ IT), IMPLIED BOYXBOY **_

* * *

_**Three Years Ago**_

It was dark in the circular room, only lit by five dim lantern shaped lights fixed on the walls. Fences surrounded the circular room on all sides, separating the circular area from the benches that lined the walls. Stuff hung from the fences, all weapons. Staffs, swords, daggers, even javelins. The concrete floor was stained with a rusty color that looked frighteningly like blood.

Two kids stood in the center of the circular area. One of the kids was a girl of thirteen years of age with her long blonde hair woven into thick braids that brushed her collar bone, swinging lightly every time she shook her head. She wore a black leather jacket that hugged her body over a white tank top and ripped skinny, black jeans with worn out black boots. Her icy blue eyes were determined and hard as she stared at the boy across from her, her lips set into a frown.

The other kid was a boy of the same age as the girl. His curly brown hair was much shorter than the girl's but still longer than the average boy's with a few small braids, not even an inch long, at the ends, resting on the back of his neck. He wore an Army jacket with a black T-shirt and dark denim jeans with a pair of black sneakers that looked like they were on the verge of falling apart. His brown eyes were much more expressive than the girl's. His eyes showed fear, but the fear was not for himself. It was for her.

"Jewels, you know how dangerous it is," the boy was saying, his quiet voice echoing in the silence of the room.

The girl looked away from him, her eyes fixed on one of the many red stains on the floor.

"I know it's dangerous, Leo, but after what happened to Adam… Leo, it's now or never. Those kids… you and I didn't have a choice, but those kids do."

"Don't you remember the reason we didn't have a choice?" Leo demanded. "What about your mom and sister? What about Madison and Morgan, Sarah and James? How many people would be in danger if we tried to leave, Julia?"

Julia sighed. "We're far enough away from them that Blake wouldn't go after them."

"You don't know that. Blake is a sicko. He has murdered people for less!"

"And that's exactly why we need to leave, Leo! How long until those kids have blood on their hands? How long until they have seen people killed or so beat up, they were coughing up blood? You saw somebody die in your first week here! I saw horrors no one should ever have to see! Eight year olds being trained to kill, so called rule breakers being forced to fight to the death for something as small as stealing food from Blake's room-"

"And traitors tortured to death or insanity, whichever came first!" Leo pointed out. "I-I don't want that to happen to you, Julia."

Julia felt tears sting her eyes as she grabbed Leo's hands, pressing her forehead against his.

"You can't stop me, Leo, and I really don't want to leave you behind, but I will if it means saving those kids from becoming monsters like the rest of them, like… like us," Julia murmured, her voice breaking, trying not to think of all the times she had stood by and watched as people were slaughtered and abused right in front of her. Not anymore. "What if it was Madison and Morgan, Leo?"

Leo swallowed, harshly, images of the two children he had befriended after being taken in by a friendly woman. Madison and Morgan, only five years old. Those kids were the same age as them.

Leo nodded against Julia's forehead. "Okay. We'll put the plan in action tonight."

Julia smiled. "Thank you."

* * *

It only took around four minutes to go horribly wrong.

The plan was simple. Leo would distract Blake and the others while Julia got the kids out; Blake had given Leo enough 'freedom,' if you could even call it that, that he could sneak away afterward and meet up with Julia and the kids.

Like I said, it only took four minutes to go horribly wrong.

"So I'm sitting there on the edge of the bath tub with a bullet in my leg, my foot stuck in a paint can, and a vicious dog barking at the door, and I still had two purple cookies left, so-" Leo rambled (the funny thing is the story he was telling had actually happened, but that's a story for another time).

"Blake!"

Leo jerked his head up, noticing the voice had come from down the hall, but that wasn't right. He had been keeping all of the others in the room, distracting them with his story, to keep them from finding…

Oh, no. John was missing, and his voice came from the direction of… Oh, no. Double oh, no.

Blake jumped to his feet at the urgency in John's voice and walked purposefully down the hallway with his inner circle following him, and Leo chased after them, hoping, praying, that whatever John had found was something that did not involve Julia…

He jinxed it.

Leo whirled around the corner and into the next room, where he found the kids surrounded by Blake's inner circle, except for John and Cruella, who were holding Julia, one grasping each of her arms as she struggled in their grip.

Julia's terrified eyes met his, and Leo's heart seemed to stop in his chest…

* * *

"We all know the punishment for betraying the gang," Blake spat, his dark eyes glaring at Julia as she stood, tied to one of the fences with her arms bound above her head. She put on a brave face, making her expression go blank and emotionless, but Leo could see right through it: she was terrified out of her mind. "Julia Bandersnatch almost kidnapped twelve of our members-" (she wasn't kidnapping them; she was saving them! Leo wanted to yell, but he restrained himself.) "-and for that, she will feel the pain of twelve for each of the children she tried to take away from their best opportunity at a better life."

Leo wanted to throw up. Some better life, he thought, sarcastically.

"We will start with 100 cuts, followed by 100 burns. We will then blind her, break her arms and legs, and drown her, pulling her out of the water when she is at the brink of death. Her shoulders will be dislocated; she will be whipped and electrocuted. She will go three days without water; she will go four days without sleep. She will be beaten and strangled, only allowed to breath right before death. If she is still alive after all of that, her throat will be slit. Justice will be served."

Cheers rang out from all around him, and Leo, sitting in the seat beside Blake and overlooking the circular room, struggled not to cry. How could this be called justice? How could anyone follow this maniac by choice? Leo… Leo didn't have a choice. Neither did Julia. It was either join the gang or watch their families be tortured and killed by the psychopath sitting next to him. How could anyone choose to follow Blake? He was a murderer and a monster. The only reason Julia and Leo hadn't killed Blake by now was because he had too many loyal followers who would kill and die for him; if they killed Blake, John or Cruella or one of the others would take his place, and they would not rest until Blake's killers and their families were dead and gone.

Julia was right about one thing: this had gone on for far too long, and Leo would not just sit by while Julia was tortured.

Leo, ignoring the nausea that rolled around in his stomach, grabbed onto Blake's hand, causing Blake to look at him.

Blake smirked. "What is it, sweetheart?"

Leo swallowed back bile. It was no secret that Blake had an… infatuation with him, and while it disgusted Leo, maybe he could use Blake's crush to his advantage.

"Julia was only trying to do what she thought was right, Blake," Leo said, choosing his words carefully. "Do you think the pain of twelve is really deserved? The children were unharmed, and Julia did he intend to harm them either. I know she didn't. She would never hurt a child. Can't you just… give her extra chores for a year or a lashing or something? The pain of twelve is very extreme for the crime, Blake," Leo pointed out as gently as possible. He still felt his heart jump at the thought of Julia getting a lashing, but it was much better than the pain of twelve. If he couldn't get Julia off the hook entirely, maybe he could lessen her punishment, and if she could just survive another week (which she wouldn't if she received the pain of twelve), maybe they could finally get out of here.

Blake frowned. "Leo, I know that Julia is your friend, and your friendship is clouding your judgement. This is what is right for her and all of our people."

Blake had a voice that could be as smooth and sweet as honey or as venomous as a snake bite, and he could easily switch between the two different tones. Years later, Leo would compare it to Piper's Charmspeak, but Blake never used his powers of persuasion for good. He manipulated people; he deceived people, and he never did it for the right reasons. He did it for control. Control of anyone and everyone until he was drunk with power.

Leo swallowed, nervously, as Blake's hand tightened on his own until the grip was almost painful.

There was only one other thing to do, one other thing that might convince Blake to let Julia go.

"I knew about it," Leo blurted, and Blake jolted back a little at the abruptness of the statement. "I knew what Julia was doing. I helped her; I distracted you while she tried to get the kids out. Let me take her place."

Blake sat in silence for a moment, his dark eyes almost as black as midnight as he turned back to the center, eyes fixed on Julia tied to the fence. People were still cheering for her death.

"She convinced you, manipulated you," Blake decided, his voice emotionless, and Leo blinked. He hadn't been expecting that.

"What?" Leo inquired.

Blake continued to stare down at Julia. "Trying to take her place is honorable, but you must understand that the guilty should be punished, not the innocent."

Leo scowled. "If that's the case, then you should have been punished a long time ago-"

Leo was abruptly cut off when Blake smacked the back of his hand against Leo's face, jerking Leo's head to the side as a stinging pain erupted on his cheek.

Blake did not say anything; the blow said it all, and Leo swallowed the taste of blood and sat back in his chair.

Pain of twelve… If he couldn't help Julia escape death, he could at least give her the pain of only one death instead of twelve.

"Can I at least say goodbye?" Leo asked, and Blake did not answer for a long moment. For a time, Leo did not believe he would answer at all.

"Make it quick," Blake states, monotonously, and Leo nodded.

"Thank you, Blake," Leo said, even though he hated to thank the monster for allowing him to say goodbye to his friend before he tortured her to death.

Leo stood from his chair and walked down the steps. Wilson and Rob, knowing he was Julia's best friend, tried to stop him at the gate to the center of the circular room, but Blake spoke up:

"Let him pass!" Blake called, and Wilson and Rob immediately stood down, allowing Leo to walk into the circular room, feeling the cold metal of his dagger against his side from where he kept it tucked into his belt.

Leo hugged Julia tightly, and Julia smiled into his ear:

"Don't worry, Leo. This isn't your fault," Julia murmured.

Leo shook his head. "It is. I just hope you can forgive me for it, Jewels."

Julia opened her mouth, but she quickly closed it when Leo drew his dagger from his belt. Wilson and Rob surged forward, and the others began to whisper amongst themselves in confusion, but all of it stopped when Leo simply grabbed one of Julia's braids and used the dagger to saw through the blonde strand. Wilson and Rob backed off, and Leo stared into Julia's eyes as he slipped the precious braid into his pocket.

"I love you," Leo told her, the whisper so quiet, it almost went unheard. A moment shared between the two of them, a fact that was not a secret but was special to them and them alone. "You're my family, and… and I'm so sorry."

Julia noticed that Leo had not lowered the dagger, resting the hand that clutched the knife against the fence beside her head, and Julia, always so smart, figured out his plan.

She had been sentenced to the pain of twelve. She would die, one way or another. But Leo was giving her a quick, painless death compared to the agonizing one she had been doomed to.

"Don't be," Julia told him. "I love you, too,you are... mi familia," Julia said, remembering the little Spanish Leo had taught her. "Thank you," she breathed, and she closed her eyes, not wanting Leo to have to see the light fade from them.

Leo kissed her on the cheek, rested his forehead against hers one last time and... stabbed the dagger into the side of her neck.

* * *

_Thank you all for reading, and stay tuned for chapter 6!_


	6. Chapter 6

_At camp while Piper, Jason and Nico are gone_

"OK, everyone look," Annabeth said

"Let's check out if the other lines have any correlation to the items in the box"

Harley took out a picture of an eight-year-old Leo holding a stuffed lion on his birthday

Annabeth's eyes widened as she started muttering to herself

"Leo...Teresa?..could have..."

Percy got tired of her muttering and outright asked

"Um... Wise girl? Can you tell us what is going on in that amazing brain of yours?"

Annabeth looked up and said

"Teresa was his first foster parent right?"

She didn't give anyone time to answer and plowed on.

"What if Leo brought the stuffed lion to Teresa's when his mom passed?

Percy eyes widened in a rare understanding and went to IM Artemis

"O Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering," he said tossing a drachma

A shimmering image of Artemis with her hunters appeared in the mist

* * *

Meanwhile…

The house was beyond creepy. It looked ahead of them, empty and collecting dust, completed abandoned. It was untouched and devoid of damage or graffiti. A location is frozen in time.

They walked inside, all a little on edge as they entered the house where Leo Valdez had been abused and nearly killed.

"It's like a ghost town," Charlotte (or Charlie), the youngest Huntress at only ten years of age (eternally ten years old, despite being a Huntress for twelve years), piped up, her voice cutting through the stale, still air, as though even the very molecules in the oxygen were too frightened to move, like a dagger.

Margaret placed a hand on Charlie's shoulder, a silent comfort to the frightened young girl. They all knew that Teresa was long gone, locked away in a prison to rot away to nothing, but they could still feel the presence of the monster in her lair, as though a beast might leap out from the shadows and gut them all before they had the chance to draw their weapons.

Thalia paired up with Charlie, and the two Huntresses climbed the stairs, peeking into rooms to see which were already being searched before finally arriving at a vacant room.

The room was of average size and simple with one bed against the far wall next to the window, the stiff floral bedspread covered in thick of a layer of dust, leading Thalia to believe that this room hadn't been touched in a long time, even before Teresa was arrested. The window was covered by heavy curtains that hadn't been opened in a very long time. There was a bathroom on the right side of the room with a table and two chairs in the center of the room and a dresser against the right wall beside another door, probably a closet.

Thalia nodded at Charlie before beginning to search under the beds while Charlie rifled through the dresser, pulling out a few outfits, but for the most part, the dresser was empty. Thalia didn't have much luck either; there was nothing under the bed except for more dust.

Thalia stood and approached the bathroom while Charlie opened the door beside the dresser.

"Thalia?" Charlie suddenly called just before Thalia entered the bathroom. "You may want to look at this."

Thalia turned around and found Charlie standing beside the open door, looking at the staircase that stretched upward.

"An attic," Thalia realized, and Charlie began to climb the stairs with Thalia following her.

The attic was packed with old junk, as most attics are. There was an old sewing machine, a box television set from the 90s, an open chest full of toys that looked like they had been taken straight out of the 1940s. Boxes and trunks were stacked halfway to the ceiling, creating a maze through the cluttered attic.

"We'll never be able to find anything in this mess," Thalia commented, and Charlie smiled.

"Please, Thalia. Organizing is my jam. This will be a piece of cake," Charlie chuckled. "Go downstairs and keep searching for the rest of the house. I've got this."

Thalia laughed a little at Charlie's words, glad to see the usually shy and insecure girl so confident, and Thalia didn't argue (what can she say? She hated cleaning, as most teenagers do) as she wandered back downstairs to continue her search.

* * *

_Meanwhile 2.0_

Artemis was just having her hunters set up camp when an Iris-message with Percy, Annabeth, and some other demigods interrupted them.

"Lady Artemis!" She said holding a picture, "I know what you need to find at Teresa's" That caught her attention and she turned around to see Annabeth Chase holding a picture of... Leo? It was definitely the same scrawny Latino, But he looked about eight and was holding a stuffed lion, It took her a few seconds to realize what the picture had to do with anything, but as she looked at the picture the line replayed in her head

_The hunters lead the way to the lion's den_

As her eyes widened in understanding she sprinted off to tell her lieutenant what she realized.

* * *

Thalia wandered through the house, asking a couple of Hunters if they had found anything, only to receive head shakes and other negative responses. Thalia sighed and began to walk outside to cross the street to where they had set up camp in the woods to see how Leo was doing, but she had barely opened the door when Artemis appeared in front of her. Only the goddess's amazing reflexes stopped her from running into her Lieutenant.

"Thalia," Artemis stated. "Annabeth sent us an Iris Message. They think we know what we're looking for: a stuffed lion that Leo brought with him to Teresa's. It's possible he left it behind."

Thalia processed these words and slowly nodded. "The Huntresses lead the way to the lion's den," she murmured in realization. "All right. I'll tell the other Hunters. None of them have found anything, but Charlie found this attic-"

"AHHHH!"

Thalia and Artemis both jumped at the ear splitting scream that sounded from upstairs, so young that it could only belong to one Huntress and so terrified that it turned Thalia's veins to ice.

"Charlie!" Thalia shouted, and she bolted for the stairs, Artemis not too far behind her. They climbed the stairs to the top floor and burst into the room Thalia and Charlie had been searching, only to find the other Hunters already there, a few in the room there had raced into, but the sound of battle carried down from the attic.

"What happened?" Thalia demanded, and Phoebe responded:

"Charlie ran into the Nemean Lion," Phoebe explained as she rifled through her back and yanked out two Hunting Knives.

"Is she okay?" Thalia asked, desperately, and some of the panic left her when Phoebe nodded.

"Kaleigh found Charlie pinned to the floor by the Lion, and she tackled it before Charlie could get seriously hurt. Now, let's go join the fight!" Phoebe said, adrenaline so pronounced in her body that Thalia could feel it as though it were radiating off of her in waves. Thalia could feel energy vibrating in her body as her battle instincts activated, and the goddess and her Hunters ran up the steps to join the battle.

The Nemean Lion was just as Thalia remembered it from four years ago: huge with a golden gleaming coat, a snarling mouth of pointy teeth, claws as sharp and deadly as daggers. Willow was up close and personal with her dagger, stabbing at the Lion, but her knife bounced off like the blade was made of rubber. Margaret was holding a trembling Charlie while Quinn stood over them with her knife out, guarding the two Hunters from the heated battle. Kaleigh was hanging onto the Lion, riding it like one might ride a mechanical bull (which is to say, not really riding as much as just trying to hang on for dear life). Bree was using random objects in the attic to make traps and trip the lion up. Cat was making trip wires with scarves and jump ropes and other miscellaneous items she had found in the attic…

Bingo. A plan started to form in Thalia's mind as she flashed back to that day at the museum when she found the Nemean Lion for the first time.

"Guys, weapons won't cut it," she yelled as she ran over to Cat, quickly telling her what to do, and Cat nodded, dismantling the trip wires and gathering the ropes and scarves and even blankets to carry out the plan.

Strangling the monster seemed like the best course of action. Thalia remember how Percy had come up with the idea all those years ago, but unfortunately, the lion remembered, too, and it wasn't about to fall for that again. The lion reared back and kicked Cat in the chest, sending her flying backwards into a wall, when he realized what she was doing. The objects in Cat's hands flew everywhere, and the lion seemed to smile cruelly as it ruined their battle strategy.

Bree ran over to help Cat, and Thalia, truly at a loss of what to do, ran forward, hoping she could think of something as she went along. Artemis began to race forward, ready to kill the lion with her bare hands if she had to, but someone beat her to the punch. Someone very surprising.

"Charlie, what are you doing?" Margaret shouted as the blonde girl broke free from her embrace and ran straight at the lion.

Thalia changed direction, ready to protect Charlie, their youngest sister, but she knew she would never make it in time. Charlie was so young. She wasn't weak or a forward, but she was a lover, not a fighter. She had witnessed far too much death to kill another living thing, even a monster, unless she absolutely had to. She barely had any combat or weapon training, for Pete's sake, just enough to keep her alive in a fight if it ever came to it! Against a Nemean Lion? Charlie wouldn't stand a chance.

Thalia should really learn to stop underestimating people.

Charlie hit the floor less than two feet from the Nemean and slid under it, her dagger held over her chest, and she thrust the blade into the Lion's open mouth as it roared. Golden ichor splattered everywhere as the blade sunk into the vulnerable skin in the back of the Lion's throat, and Lion screeched in pain before exploding into golden dust. Monster dust rained down on all of the Hunters and covered Charlie, still very much in the splatter zone, from head to toe.

Charlie coughed, spitting out some monster dust, and the young girl staggered to her feet, blinking even more golden dust from her eyes, and Thalia practically tackled the girl in a hug.

"That was the most stupidly brave plan I have ever seen! And I hang out with Percy Jackson once or twice a month!" Thalia scolded. "Don't you ever do something that stupid again? That was the most reckless, dangerous plan…"

Charlie lowered her head, fully expecting the admonishment to continue, but Thalia's worried expression melted into a smile.

"But it was also smart. But wow, Charlie, where did that come from? I've never even seen you take out a dracaena! A Nemean Lion? Wow."

"That was amazing, Charlie. I am so proud of you, my Huntress," Artemis added, smoothing down Charlie's blonde hair.

Charlie shrugged, sheepishly. "Well, I saw you guys in danger, and after it hurt Cat, I didn't want it to hurt anyone else," Charlie explained.

"Well, I am so proud of you for- Wait. Cat!" Thalia suddenly exclaimed, and Charlie's eyes widened at the same time. In all the excitement, they had almost forgotten about their injured sister.

Thalia, Charlie, and Artemis raced over to where Bree, Quinn, and Margaret gathered around Cat.

"How is she?" Thalia inquired as she knelt by the girl's side. Cat's brown hair was matted with

"Concussion. Broken ribs. Fractured arm. Internal bleeding. I don't think she has a punctured lung, but I'm not sure," Margaret informed them. "I can detect injuries, but Allison's healing abilities are better than mine."

Artemis nodded in understanding. "Willow, Isabella, make a stretcher out of the stuff in this attic. Everyone else, we are looking for a stuffed lion. While we-"

"Like this one?" Kaleigh piped up, still sitting in the cardboard box she had been thrown into during the fight as she pulled out a stuffed animal from under her back.

It was a small lion, well worn and obviously well loved. Some stuffing poke out of its hip, and one of its black eyes was coming loose and hanging by a thread.

Artemis nodded. "That's exactly it, Kaleigh!" Artemis exclaimed as Phoebe helped Kaleigh out of the box.

"You okay, Ky?" Phoebe wondered. "You got thrown pretty hard."

Kaleigh nodded. "Yeah, just a few bruises. I was lucky enough to land in a box of stuffed animals," she chuckled as she handed Artemis the stuffed lion. Isabella and Willow walked over with a makeshift stretched made out of a trunk with a Plus My blanket over the lid.

"Let's get Cat to Allison. Thalia, Iris Message Annabeth and let her know we found one of the objects," Artemis instructed, and Thalia went off to do just that while Phoebe and Kaleigh carried Cat on the stretcher.

Artemis lingered behind, staring at the small lion, and Charlie stood beside her.

"What has he been through, Lady Artemis?" Charlie wondered, but it was more of a rhetorical question. Artemis answered, anyway.

"Honestly, Charlie… I don't know, and...I'm a little scared to find out."


	7. Chapter 7

_**Disclaimer: Neither Myra109 nor RueFlower777 own PJO/HOO. We only own our Original Characters (OCs).**_

* * *

**Back At Camp Half Blood**

"Why does he have a chemistry book in here?" Nyssa wondered, eyes squinted in confusion as she held up a thick, heavy book with the word Chemistry printed on the front and surrounded by a typhoons of colors that splashed across the page.

Percy shrugged, examining a rubber duck from the box in curiosity, wondering what the tale behind this object was. "Who knows? Once all of this resolved and Leo is healthy again, you can ask him."

"Since when do you know a word like resolved?" Frank asked, tone colored with disbelief, glancing up from the box.

Percy narrowed his eyes, irritated. "I'm not completely stupid, you know," he snapped, placing the rubber duck back in the box.

"Yeah," Annabeth spoke up, looking up from where she was searching through the box. "He can actually be pretty smart when he wants to be."

"Thank you, Anna-"

"Hey, what's this?" Harley suddenly inquired, causing them to turn to him as he held up a folded pamphlet.

Annabeth took the pamphlet from Harley and unfolded it, revealing a map of the United States. There were drawings all over the map, done in various colors and with multiple writing utensils (although mostly Sharpie).

Annabeth frowned in confusion. "What on Earth does all of this mean?" she murmured, eyes scanning the map and drinking in all of the different symbols scattered across the paper. There were numbers and letters and sometimes totally random icons, like a fish with a frowny face or a book or… startlingly, a noose.

"Follow the path the fire user once walked alone," Hazel mused as she glanced over Annabeth's shoulder at the map, sitting on Leo's bed while she looked at all of the objects she had pulled out of the Box Of Mystery (as Percy had taken to calling it). "Maybe this map is the path the prophecy talked about."

Annabeth hummed in consideration. "I think you might be right, Hazel. Maybe we have to use context clues from the other lines in the prophecy to discover what some of these symbols mean and which to go to. What were some of the other lines in the prophecy?"

Will withdrew a slip of paper from his pocket, which he had written the prophecy on following the Oracle's spooky and mysterious… well, prophecy.

"The Hunters know the way to the lion's den," he recited.

"The stuffed lion at Teresa's place," Annabeth stated. "The Hunters are already on it."

"While a lock of hair helps dove and lightning to make the trio whole again," Will read. "Jason and Piper went to the Underworld with Nico to find Julia Bandersnatch, the girl the hair belonged to, and see if she knows anything about the object Jason and Piper need to find."

Annabeth nodded. "Okay. What's next?"

"Skull and sun must find a picture in the ashes," Will answered, lifting the piece of paper to read from it.

Percy bit his lip in thought. "Well, skull and sun are obviously you and Nico, but a picture in the ashes? What significance does that have?"

Annabeth looked over the map and shook her head. "There's no depictions of fire anywhere on here."

"Maybe Jason and Piper will know. We can ask them when they get back," Hazel proposed. "In the meantime, Will, continue."

Will did so. "Sea must swim past the deep end before the storm passes."

Annabeth tapped the map. "Look at this."

She placed the map beside Hazel and smoothed out some of the creases to make the symbols clearer, and she pointed to a picture of a swimming pool.

"St. Louis," Percy realized.

Annabeth nodded. "Yep. Try not to break the St. Louis Arch again," she said in mild exasperation, but the fondness was unmistakable in her tone.

"What?" Hazel, Frank, and Harley squawked. Nyssa and Will, who had been at camp at the time of Percy's first quest and heard the story, muffled chuckles at the shocked expressions on the others' faces.

Percy shrugged with a sheepish smile. "Story for another time. Does anybody have any idea what I'm looking for? St. Louis is a big city," he pointed out, voice woven with doubt and uncertainty. How could he find the object if the prophecy didn't even give him a hint of what he was looking for or where to find it? All he knew was that it was somewhere in St. Louis, which wasn't exactly a small town.

Annabeth frowned before a small smile crossed her face. "You know, I think I might have an idea. We only know the city, not the exact location, but there's a way we might be able to find out."

Percy knit his brow. "And what would that be, Wise Girl?" He inquired, unable to hide the small grin that made its way onto his lips. He loved that look his girlfriend got in her eye when the gears in her head started turning, a clear sign of her unsurpassable cleverness.

Annabeth grabbed what appeared to be a business card out of the box. "Martin Blake, Social Worker," she read. "Remember him?"

Will nodded. "Yeah, Jason and Piper told me about him, but how can he help us? Isn't he bound by some kind of confidentiality agreement to protect the information of the children and the foster parents?"

Annabeth nodded. "Yes… but if someone can… break into the social worker building he works at, we can get the paperwork. And…" She examined the business card a little closer, "Just as I thought, the place of his work happens to be in St. Louis."

Percy raised an eyebrow, laughter dancing in his eyes. "Wise Girl, are you encouraging me to break into a building and steal confidential records?"

Annabeth smirked, cheekily. "Oh, I'm not encouraging you. I'm telling you. You've done worse."

Percy shrugged. "True," he agreed, pocketing the business card of Martin Blake. "All right, Will, what's next?"

"Wisdom follows an article to a friendship long since broken," Will told him.

Nyssa frowned, fiddling with some random wires and other loose objects. She, like most Hephestaus children, moved their hands even more than usual when they were nervous or scared. "But that could be a lot of things. An article could be an object… an article of clothing… or-"

"A newspaper article?" Frank interrupted, holding up a cut out section of a newspaper he had found in the box and handing it to Annabeth.

She forgot how to breathe.

_**Suicide Of Local Columbus Teen**_

_**Holly Webster (13) died by suicide last night. Her best friend Leonidas Valdez (13) is unable to comment. Valdez had found out Holly Webster had hung herself on a noose yesterday evening. **_**_According to sources, Webster posted a video with her final goodbye to the world, and it was seen by her friend, Leonidas Valdez. Valdez called Holly Webster's mother (Lucy Webster, 41). Holly Webster was home alone, and by the time Valdez reached the house, Webster had hung herself. The ambulance arrived three minutes later, but it was already too late. Holly Webster was pronounced dead on arrival at 5:43 pm on April 19th, 2014 at Columbus Mercy Hospital._**

_**Several students noted that Holly had been a (cont. pg 10)**_

The rest had been ripped off.

"I guess we know why the friendship was broken." Percy's voice was frighteningly flat and emotionless as he said this, but despite what appeared to be a neutral tone, Annabeth could hear the undertones pain and sadness.

Annabeth's own heart felt like it had been sucker punched. Loss of life was horrible enough, especially with someone so young, but to know that someone had felt so much pain and emotional agony that they decided it would be better to have no life at all than continue to life the life they had… that was just awful.

Being a demigod, they had all had a suicidal thought at one point or another, some worse than others. To just give up, stop fighting, to surrender and lay down… that was pretty tempting with the chaotic, exhausting lives demigods lived. They were fighting a constant battle, and sometimes it seemed better fought than won. Because the only way to end a constant battle was to die…

For most demigods, Annabeth included, these thoughts were few and far between, thankfully. But for the ones that had these thoughts more often than others… not all of them survived, and it never got any easier when a fellow demigod died by their own hand.

Annabeth glanced at Percy. After what happened with Luke, it was very possible that she could have been one of those demigods… but she found something to live for.

She only wished that she could say the same for everyone who even considered suicide because not everyone found that reason to stay.

"I guess I'm going to Columbus, Ohio," she choked out, and if anyone noticed the tears in her eyes, they didn't say anything. Partially because they all had tears in their own. "What's next, Will?" She managed, placing the newspaper article on the floor by her leg, being extra careful with it as though it were a fragile artifact.

Will swallowed. "War and Jewels go the Golden State to search for a token."

"War and Jewels is Hazel and Frank," Harley said.

"And the Golden State is California," Nyssa added.

Annabeth took a deep breath, trying to ignore the tears drying just under her eyes, and she wiped away the remnants of her sorrow and got back to work.

Annabeth examine the map on the bed more closely, pointing to California.

"There's three," Harley realized, and the young mechanic was right. There were three things on the map in the state of California. A music note with the words Toons and Jams written below it. A printed out miniature picture of the cover of Romeo and Juliet (Annabeth wondered what the story behind that one was). And A drawing of angel wings.

"I guess you guys will have to check them all," Annabeth said, but before she could continue, Nyssa spoke up:

"Look at this," the daughter of Hephaestus interjected, holding up a copy of Romeo and Juliet that she had pulled out of the box. "Could this be what that symbol means?" She suggested, pointing to the Romeo and Juliet picture on the map.

Nyssa opened up the book and grinned, triumphantly. "Chargers High School, Home of the Stallions," she announced, showing them the incident the book, which had Leo's name written in cursive with the name of the school under it. "You guys have a location," Nyssa pointed out, handing the book to Hazel.

"What about the other two?" Will asked.

"Well…" Annabeth clicked her tongue in thought as she pulled a laptop out of her bag (with its very own monster repelling chip installed, courtesy of Leo). "Toons and Jams sounds like some kind of store or restaurant or something, which means that it should pop up when I search it," she explained, and sure enough, when she hit search, Toons and Jams popped up in the results.

"It's a Teen Club," Annabeth informed them, grabbing a notepad from Leo's bedside table and jotting something down with a pen. "And here's the address," she added, handing the paper to Hazel, who stuck it inside the copy of Romeo and Juliet. "The only thing I'm not sure about is the picture of the angel wings. We have the city, but not the exact location."

Frank pursed his lips. "I guess we'll have to found out when we get there… or maybe the gods will decide to be nice and send us a dream with the location. We can hope, right?"

Will nodded. "Okay, the rest of the lines are pretty self explanatory… except for one: lightning must remember lost memories. Lightning must mean Jason, but how can he recover these lost memories?"

Annabeth bit the inside of her cheek, a nervous habit of hers. "We can ask Chiron; he might know."

Before anyone could say anything more, the shadows in the room gathered together, gravitating towards the spot at the end of the bed, and out of the shadows tumbled their three friends.

"Jason, Piper, Nico, how did it go?" Percy questioned.

Nico swallowed as he got to his feet. "We'll explain everything, but we know what they're supposed to be looking for and where it is."

Hazel raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Well, that's a better turn out than expected."

"Trust me," Piper continued, and Annabeth felt her heart sink when she saw the despair reflected in Piper's kaleidoscope eyes. "When you hear this story, you won't think so."


	8. Chapter 8

**In The Underworld**

Jason's eyes were wet with tears as the the memory of Julia's death finished. Beside him, he could see Piper trying to stop the waterfall of tears flowing down her face, too. On his other side, he saw a tear fall down Nico's face, he would have been surprised but honestly, Jason couldn't blame the guy. He was in shock, Leo had been though Tersesa and then this too? Jason only knew a little bit of Leo's past, but he knew he had gone though too much.

"I don't understand, though. Why would Leo be in a gang? Why would you be in a gang?" Piper inquired, rubbing away some tears from her eyes. Her voice shook a little bit but remained strong. "That doesn't sound like Leo, and from what you told us, it doesn't sound like you either."

Julia shrugged, walking over to place her sword in the weapons rack on the side of the arena. "Gangs aren't always what people think they are. There are a lot of stereotypes surrounding gangs and the people in them, a lot of them true but a lot of them false. I ran away from home when I was eleven; it was a stupid decision. I had a good life at home, but… my mom started dating this guy, a nice guy, and I overreacted. I didn't want my life to change, so I left out of anger.

"And that's when I met Cruella," Julia continued, turning back to face them. A small smile appeared on her face. "She was nice to me at first. She took me to this place, a warehouse where all of these kids and teens and young adults stayed. It didn't look like a gang. It just looked like a band of runaways, and that was what Cruella told me they were. She lied.

"A few months after, Cruella showed her true colors. The gang was built on the foundations of loyalty and trust and strength, which seems like a good thing, but… they took it too far.

"If you went against the gang, your family paid the price for it."

Jason couldn't stop the gasp that escaped his mouth at her words.

"They… killed people?" Piper stammered. "I mean, I know what they were going to do to you, but… they killed the families of so called traitors?"

Julia nodded, somberly. "I feared for my mother's life if I ever left the gang, and when Leo showed up about a year after I met Cruella, he feared for the lives of some of his friends. These people- Rose Potter and her children James, Madison, and Morgan- had taken him in after he ran away from a foster home. They treated him like family and not like a charity case, and the thing Leo loved most was that… he had the freedom to choose whether to leave or stay. If he chose to just pack up his bags and leave one day, they would be sad but they wouldn't stop him like foster parents or social services would have done. He had the freedom to choose, and Leo wanted that more than anything. That was why he got so close to them.

"Until Blake came into his life. Leo never told me the full story, but he did tell me that Blake met him and… took a liking to him. Blake basically stalked Leo for a month before he made his move and threatened the Potters if Leo didn't join the gang. Leo couldn't let anything bad happen to the Potters, so he gave up his freedom in exchange for their safety, and the worst part is… the Potters think Leo just left them. As far as I know, they have no idea what happened. They thought Leo chose to leave them," Julia rambled, and at this, she couldn't stop the tears from escaping her eyes. She choked back a sob, and Jason wasn't surprised to find that he was doing the same.

Julia scrubbed away her tears and swallowed, continuing the story. "Blake held that above Leo's head for a year, and after I died, Leo couldn't take it anymore. He left the gang that night. I'm not sure if Blake ever went after the Potters, and I'm not sure if Leo knows either."

Nico nodded, and Jason could see the tears pooling in Nico's eyes, but Nico, being Nico, refused to let them fall. "Thank you, Julia. This… This has been very helpful. Do you know where the dagger could be?"

Julia nodded. "It should still be at the gang's headquarters. Sparrow Street, Salida, Colorado (1). There's a bunch of abandoned warehouses lining the street that the gang uses. The dagger has Leo's initials engraved into the bottom of the hilt."

Jason brushed his blonde hair from his eyes, more just to move his hands than having to get his hair out of his face. "Thanks, Julia, and what you did… for those kids… that was really brave."

Julia pursed her lips. "I was tired of being a sheep," she replied, simply, but Jason, Piper, and Nico, knowing far too well what it was like to be pawns in a chess game they never wanted to play, understood, perfectly.

* * *

**Camp Half Blood, Cabin 9**

Annabeth was in shock. She knew that Leo had been through some tough stuff, but not like this.

She thought of how hard it must have been for Leo to kill his friend to spare her a painful death, and the image of a blonde boy with a scar stretching down the side of his face plunging her knife into his Achilles Heel. She knew exactly how hard something like that was, how something like that robbed you of a piece of your soul that, no matter what you do, you can never get back.

"Why didn't Leo tell us?" Hazel murmured, her quiet voice resembling a scream in the silence that had fallen over the room following the story Jason, Piper, and Nico had told.

"Would you be able to talk about something like that?" Percy asked, not in an angry or accusatory voice, but in a flat tone, a genuine question.

Hazel remembered all the ones that had fallen victim to her curse, remembered the way her own mother tried to use he'd to raise Gaea, and she understood all too well how difficult it could be to confide in people, to open the closet and show people the skeletons and demons that lurked there.

Annabeth unfolded the map once again, and if anyone noticed her hands shaking, nobody pointed it out as she flattened the map on the bed.

"This is what we know so far," she began, talking mainly to Jason, Piper, and Nico but also just wanting to lay down all of the information and sort out her cluttered, overwhelmed mind. "To save the flame you must go where the healer god roams: according to Zeus, Apollo is in Alaska, and the Hunters are going to head there after they have the item they're looking for. Follow the path that fire once walked alone: we think that means this map. All of these symbols represent something in Leo's life, a place he's been, an event that occurred, somebody he knew. This is a map of Leo's life, of his past. It's the path that he once walked alone," Annabeth explained, tracing her finger over all of the different symbols drawn on the map, never ceasing to wonder what all of them meant.

"The Hunters lead the way to the lion's den," the daughter of Athena continued. "We found this picture while you were gone," she told the son of Hades, child of Jupiter, and daughter of Aphrodite as she reached into the Box and withdrew the photograph of Leo with the stuffed lion. "We Iris Messaged the Hunters and told them that this is what we think they're looking for, but we haven't heard back from them yet. Provided they found it, that's one item down," she announced, placing the photo with utmost care on Leo's bed beside the map.

"While a lock of hair helps dove and lightning to make the trio whole again," she pushed on. "That was obviously you guys going to find Julia, and thanks to her, we now what the item is and where it's located. A dagger with Leo's initials in a warehouse on Sparrow Street in Salida, Colorado," Annabeth clarified, and she pointed her finger to that place on the map, where two things had been drawn: a red bandana and the letters D and C overlapping each other, almost like some kind of insignia. "We haven't figured out the next line. We were hoping you guys could help us out. Skull and sun must find a picture in the ashes."

Jason straightened, immediately, and he turned to Piper. "Do you think it could mean…"

Piper nodded. "It's definitely a significant event," she stated.

"Do you guys know where it is?" Nyssa wondered.

Piper and Jason turned back to their friends, and Piper responded. "Yes."

The daughter of love placed her index finger on the map, directly over a picture a house with a heart drawn inside of it. The symbol was located in Texas.

"Houston, Texas," Piper answered. "It's where Leo was born and… where his mom died when he was eight. She died in a warehouse fire."

Nyssa perked up in interest. "He told me it was a warehouse collapse."

Jason nodded. "That's what he told us, too, until he told us the truth back in January when you guys were working on the Argo II. It's a… hard topic for him to talk about. Gaea showed up, locked his mom in the warehouse, and tricked Leo into using his powers."

Percy blinked as realization dawned on him. "Leo started the fire." He wasn't blaming Leo for anything, simply stating a fact, but horror could be heard in his voice. Not horror at Leo's actions but horror at the fact that Gaea was sick enough to trick an eight year old into causing the death of his mother. Sometimes Percy could fool himself into thinking even immortal beings had some kind of a moral standards, but then something like this happened, and that illusion was shattered like a window after a rock had been thrown through it.

Piper nodded. "It wasn't his fault," she said, even though she knew Percy wasn't blaming Leo. She just felt like it had to be said. "He's blamed himself for it, though, especially after his cruel aunt told him he killed his mother right before throwing him to social services," she muttered, her voice bitter. "No matter how many times we tell him it wasn't his faults, I don't think he'll ever be able to stop blaming himself for what happened."

Jason pursed his lips, tapping his foot in agitation. He didn't want to think about all of the pain and horror Leo had been through anymore because he knew that if he heard one more tragic tale, he would be tracking down ever single person that hurt Leo and frying them with as much lightning as he could summon. He tried to restrain himself, though. These monsters weren't worth it; Leo was, and he needed to focus on saving his best friend…

Then maybe he could start planning revenge.

"It's probably a picture of Leo's mother. I don't know the exact address of the warehouse… or where it used to he, but I know the address of his aunt," Jason informed them.

Piper frowned. "Why? Leo never told us that."

Jason blinked and rubbed the back of his neck, nervously. "After he told me about what his aunt did, I may have… tracked her down? I was going to pay her a little visit, but then the whole thing with Teresa happened, and I never got the chance."

Everyone stared at him.

Percy nodded, patting him on the back. "Don't worry, man. I would've done the same thing."

The others nodded in agreement, and Jason gave a small, mostly fake smile as he pulled out his phone (complete with a monster repelling chip, courtesy of Leo). He copy and pasted the address from where he had saved it to his notes app into a text and sent it, hearing the tell tale ding as it arrived in Will and Nico's phones.

"I just texted you guys the address," he clarified.

Annabeth nodded. "Great. The next line is…Sea must swim into the deep end before the storm passes."

"That's one of the lines that we just can't figure out," Frank informed Jason, Piper, and Nico. "We found a drawing of a swimming pool on the map, and it's our best bet, but while we know it's in St. Louis, we don't know exactly where."

"And that's how I got roped in to breaking into the office of Leo's social worker to find out," Percy chirped, so casually, it would have been downright alarming if anyone but a demigod had said it.

"We're still not sure what the storm is, though," Hazel admitted.

"Doesn't exactly sound promising," Will muttered.

"Wisdom follows an article to a friendship long since broken," Annabeth continued, and she handed the newspaper article to Piper, who held it in her hands to read it while Jason and Nico read it over her shoulder.

Nico swallowed, harshly. "Holly Webster. Fields of Asphodel."

As if the tragic nature of her death, not to mention the painful nature of her life, hearing the meaningless existence she was doomed to after she took her final breath only made it worse. Annabeth tried not to imagine a girl younger than she was that had experienced so much pain, she would rather die than continue to feel that agony and loneliness every day, only to be sentenced to an afterlife of wandering aimlessly, memories little more than whisps of smoke, soul dim and gray, no happiness or peace, even in death.

Like I said, she tried not to imagine it.

"Columbus, Ohio," Annabeth stated. "That's where I need to go, but Columbus is still a pretty big city. I looked Holly Webster up on the Internet, but I couldn't find anything. There's a lot of Holly Websters in the world, and a frightening amount of them have committed suicide, even when I narrowed the search to Columbus, Ohio."

"I think I found something," Nyssa piped up. "I didn't really think of it, but that chemistry book I found? The school is located in Columbus, Ohio," Nyssa told her, holding out the book with the front cover open, and sure enough, on the inside of the hard back cover, a stamp mark could be seen:

**Fredrickson Middle School. 45237, Street 79. Columbus, Ohio (2)**

Annabeth nodded, closing the book with a small snap and placing it in her backpack. "As good as place to start as any. Thanks, Nyssa. The next line is War and Jewels go to the Golden State to search for a token."

"There are three markings on the map," Will spoke up. "Hazel and Frank will need to visit all three until they find whatever token they're supposed to be looking for. The first one is a Teen Club called Toons and Jams in San Francisco. The second is Chargers High School in Oakland. The final one is the one we're not sure about: a picture of Angel wings in San Diego."

"Use five items from his past and the power of two gods to complete the cure, or else fire's fate will be all too sure seems pretty self explanatory," Annabeth said. "However, the next line is lightning must recover lost memories. We think Chiron might be able to help Jason with that one."

Jason nodded as he stood up from where he had been sitting beside the bed on his knees to get a closer look at the map during the explanation. "I'll go talk to Chiron. You guys should call Thalia and the Hunters to see if they found the lion," Jason suggested before climbing out of Leo's private room and heading for the Big House.

"You guys, start packing up the box. Everything except for the map and stuff we need We don't want to lose any of this stuff," Annabeth pointed out.

Harley laughed without any real humor. "Yeah, Leo might kill us if we do."

They all laughed, but they were all thinking about how important some of the things in the box were to Leo. If they lost any of it, they wouldn't blame Leo for going on a rampage.

"Annabeth and I will head to my cabin to IM the Hunters," Percy added before Seaweed Brain and Wise Girl exited the room and walked towards Cabin Three.

* * *

_**1\. Sparrow Street is not a real street, at least to my knowledge. Salida is a real city in Colorado, but I have never been there. I looked up Colorado cities on the Internet and picked one.**_

_**2\. Yet another completely made up address. Not a real school, at least to my knowledge.**_


	9. Chapter 9

**In Percy's Cabin**

An IM shimmered to life above the water fountain as Percy threw in a drachma.

"Thalia Grace, At Teresa Wilkes's house," Annabeth requested of the goddess, and watched as the image of Thalia Grace materialized.

Thalia looked up from cleaning her golden dust covered dagger and her face broke into a grin.

"Annie! Kelp head! How is it goin' ?" She asked.

"We deciphered about..." Annabeth counted off the verses with her fingers. "One... Two, Three! About three of the verses, and don't call me Annie!" Annabeth said, unable to resist protesting the detested nickname.

"And she's having me break into Leo's social worker's office to find out what _Sea must swim to the deep end before the storm passes _means," Percy interjected.

Thalia smiled deviously, "Did I hear that right? Annabeth Chase is _encouraging _someone to break a rule? Now i've seen everything," she said.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, it's a historic moment. Did you find anything at Teresa's place?" Annabeth wondered, getting straight down to business.

Thalia immediately turned serious. "Oh, we found something. We found a Nemean Lion."

"You found a what now?!" Percy exclaimed, his eyes widening.

Thalia nodded. "Yep. Apparently, that whole lion's den thing was a little more literal than we assumed."

"Is-Is everyone okay?" Annabeth stammered. She had never fought the Nemean Lion herself, but she had read the 'myth' and heard Percy's story about the time he encountered the Lion. She knew how difficult, borderline impossible, they were to beat with their invulnerable skin.

Thalia shrugged, rubbing the back of her neck and avoiding their eyes as she answered, "Kind of. One of the Hunters, Cat, got some broken ribs and internal bleeding, but Allison and Artemis are fixing her up now. On the bright so, though, we did find the object," Thalia said, grinning triumphantly, as she held up a musty, ratty looking stuffed lion. The stuffed animal had obviously been well loved, Annabeth and Percy could tell.

Annabeth smiled in relief. "That's good. How's Leo?" she inquired, her relieved smile vanishing as quickly as it came at the thought of their injured friend.

Thalia shrugged. "I'm not sure," she replied, looking at something behind the Iris Message. "Allison!"

A girl with flowing brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and freckles splattered across her narrow nose appeared in the view of the IM.

"Yeah, Thalia?" The girl- Allison, Percy and Annabeth assumed- asked.

"Percy, Annabeth, this is Allison, our main Healer besides Artemis. Allison, these are Percy and Annabeth, Leo's friends. They want to know how Leo is," Thalia explained.

Allison turned to the Iris Message with a look on her face that reminded Percy and Annabeth of the face doctors wore- emotionless, all business, detached.

"The venom has three main stages as it affects the body. Leo is still in stage one, which is a good thing," Allison assured them. "Stage one includes high fever, hallucinations, and a rash of blisters, all of which will only get worse as the venom spreads.

"Stage 2 is the longest stage and has a variety of symptoms. Stage 2 includes paralysis, which can be reversed if we heal him earlier enough, but it can become permanent if the venom is left untreated for much longer. During stage 2, he'll have breathing difficulties, an irregular heartbeat, low blood pressure, vision loss, and bleeding from the mouth, nose, and ears.

"Stage 3 is when his organs start to shut down, and his brain functions begin to slow. He will have a hard time speaking, understanding, and remembering certain things, and he may experience seizures and catatonia," Allison explained.

By the end of the explanation, Percy and Annabeth were stark pale, and Percy looked like he was on the verge of throwing up.

Allison did not try to sugar coat the awful reality of the situation, but she did add, "The best thing we can do is work fast and keep him on a steady amount of Nectar and Ambrosia to slow the effects of the venom. As long as we complete the quest within 2 to 3 weeks, Leo does have a good chance of survival and making a full recovery, but there's no time to waste."

Thalia nodded. "Thank you, Allison," she stated, and the said girl disappeared off screen. Thalia turned back to Percy and Annabeth. "We're doing everything we can for Leo, but like Allison said, there's no time to waste. We'll start heading for Alaska. What's your game plan?"

Annabeth nodded, pursing her lips in worry for her friend. "We split up after we leave camp to find the items. We at least know the states the items are in. Jason and Piper are going to Salida, Colorado. Will and Nico are going to Houston, Texas. Percy's going to St. Louis, Missouri. I'm going to Columbus, Ohio. Hazel and Frank have three possible locations in California: San Francisco, Oakland, and San Diego."

Thalia nodded, biting her lip in thought. "Okay. Three weeks. We can do this. The Hunters and I will go to Alaska and find Apollo while you guys find the items. Tell the others to IM us when they find an item. Once you guys have all the items and we have Apollo, we'll decide on a meeting place and head to Olympus."

Annabeth nodded. "Sounds like a plan. Thanks, Thalia."

Annabeth swept her hand through the mist, and the image of the Lieutenant of Artemis disappeared.

Percy placed a hand on her shoulder. "We can do this."

He read the concern, the fear, the uncertainty, every emotion she was experiencing on her face. They didn't really need words to know how the other was feeling.

Annabeth nodded. "I hope so. We can't lose Leo, Percy. We just can't."

Percy nodded and gently pulled her into a hug.

Worry still existed in every cell of Annabeth's body, but feeling her boyfriend's arms around her did help the comfort her a little.

* * *

**Meanwhile At The Big House…**

_Knock, knock, knock!_

Jason bounced his leg nervously as he waited for the door to the Big House to open, and he listened to the familiar clomp, clomp, clomp! of Chiron's hooves against the floorboards as the centaur approached the door.

The door opened.

"Oh, Jason, my boy! How are you?" Chiron inquired with a soft smile, but his aged eyes were deep pits of worry and curiosity. "Have you heard anything from the Hunters?"

Jason shook his head. "Not yet, but Percy and Annabeth are going to Iris Message them soon. This is actually about the prophecy. We think there's a line you might be able to help us with."

Chiron nodded, backing up to make room for Jason to step through the doorway. "Of course. Let's take a seat in the living room."

Jason followed the teacher to the same room he had found himself in what felt like a lifetime ago when he first arrived at Camp Half Blood, and he took a seat on the same sofa, feeling a sense of de ja vu.

Chiron simply folded his legs underneath him and settled himself on the floor. "Now, Jason, what is it I can help you with?"

"Well, you remember the prophecy. Thinks about the second to last line: Lightning must remember lost memories. The only problem is I'm not sure how to do that," Jason explained.

Chiron nodded, his face one of deep thought as he did so. "I might know a way," Chiron answered, but he said it hesitantly, almost nervously, like it was an option he regretted suggesting before he even opened his mouth.

Jason leaned forward in curiosity. "What is it?" He wondered.

Chiron bit his lower lip, an anxious tick that Jason would have never imagined a wise, collected person like Chiron displaying. Chiron had seen everything; Jason didn't think anything stick of a war or an apocalypse could make that guy even a little nervous.

"It's risky," Chiron blurted after a long moment of tense silence. "But I am afraid it might be your only option. Mnemosyne."

Jason knit his eyebrows. He had lived in a demigod camp, albeit a Roman one, since he was two and had lived on a boat with a daughter of Athena for months, but that name didn't even sound a little bit familiar.

"Nemo-sign? Like the fish from that Disney movie?" He asked, feeling stupid for even mentioning it. What a Percy-like thing to say.

Chiron chuckled. "No," he replied before his voice turned serious once more. "Mnemosyne. The goddess of memory."

It clicked. A distant memory of a myth (well, not really a myth, he supposed he had picked up) from Annabeth.

"Wasn't she the mother of the Nine Muses or something?" Jason recalled.

Chiron nodded. "Yes. She was a Titan who was imprisoned until the end of the Giant War when Percy convinced the Gods to free the friendly Titans (1). She has a place in the Underworld, near the River Lethe because of the Lethe's strong tie to memory. If anyone can restore your lost memories, it is her."

Jason had the distinct feeling that Chiron wasn't telling him everything.

"But…" the son of Jupiter pressed.

Chiron pursed his lips. "You should know by now, Jason, that very few gods do anything for free. Mnemosyne often sends people on… missions for her."

Jason scoffed. "So I would be an errand boy for a day."

Chiron shrugged. "More or less, but Jason, these tasks… would not be simple." Chiron wouldn't meet his eyes.

Jason frowned. "Chiron…" he urged, confusion etched in his voice and expression.

Chiron continued to bite his lip and stare at the floor instead of Jason's eyes. "Mnemosyne… has asked people to kill someone in return for her services."

Jason unconsciously drew himself back in surprise.

"I am not saying that is what Mnemosyne will ask of you," Chiron rushed to add. "But…" Chiron said, slowly, "If she does, you will have to be prepared to choose: Leo's life or the life of someone else?"

Jason did not say anything else. There was nothing left to say.

But there was a heck of a lot to think about.


End file.
